I have read about experiances from certain people here, especially that of Gary Rients and I was wondering how one would go about doing a similar thing. I am currently enrolled in Tourou University in the BSCS program. Tourou is an RA accredited school and it is an okay school, according to most of the information I have received about it. What I am wondering about is the fastest possible way to finish an BS/BA degree so that I can take an MSc in CS. Tourou evaluated my transcripts and stuff like that and gave me about 60 credits and I already completed my first semester now so I have about 52 credits left. That means I still have about two years left until I finish my BS. I was wondering whether anyone like Gary or someone with a similar experiance could give a step-by-step analysis of path he took to finish his BS in a very quick manner. What school experiance he had, what job experiance, anything that matters. Basically try to be as thourough as you can be because all of this TESC, Excelsior, COSC thing confuses a lot of us and we don't understand the procedure or the requirements to be able to do this in such a quick manner. I hope I am clear, sorry for the English. Thanks, Björn Alund
Hi, Bjorn. Due to the title of this thread, I just wanted to make it clear that I didn't use any portfolio assessment at all. Actually, my degree was completed entirely through a combination of transfer coursework previously completed residentially at RA schools, 5 new courses, 3 CLEP exams, and 1 DANTES exam. The 5 courses and the DANTES exam were just for my CS major/concentration, I could have completed a BA with just a Psychology major/concentration using only my transfer credit and 3 CLEP exams. The CLEP exams took all of 3 days, so I wish that I'd done it 10 years ago. As a matter of fact, I wish I'd known 20 years ago that it was possible to obtain a degree solely through exams (if it was at that time). It was a quicker option for me than taking 10+ courses through a school with residency requirements (in the credit sense) though. The best resource that I can recommend to you is Lawrie Miller's BA in 4 Weeks site. It's a good reference for one approach to potentially completing a bachelor's degree very quickly. I wouldn't necessarily expect to finish it in 4 weeks from scratch, unless you happen to test very well, but if you're motivated it should still be much quicker than any other approach. I daresay that I think I could have easily finished a bachelor's degree entirely through exams in under 6 months when I was 14 years old. It makes me queasy to think that if I'd played my cards right I could have had a Ph.D. 15 years ago. Of course I also feel that I could have easily completed a residential college program in place of going to high school, so maybe that's misleading. The decision of whether to take courses or finish a degree entirely through assessment/exams probably depends a lot upon both the distribution of your existing credits and the requirements of the master's program(s) that you're considering. If you have a grad school in mind that will accept your current background and any RA bachelor's degree as sufficient for unconditional admission, then I'd suggest just finishing whatever bachelor's degree you can complete the quickest and cheapest. If they say that you'd only need a few background courses, then I'd just take those courses and whatever assessment/exams you'd need to go with them in order to quickly/cheaply finish a bachelor's degree. That's just my opinion though, I'm sure that some people would disagree. My personal feeling is that any MSCS will trump any BSCS from a school of equal or slightly better reputation, and will at least match (and in some ways exceed) a BSCS from almost any school. Of course a BSCS from say Stanford or MIT is pretty damn strong, but it still doesn't meet potential promotion requirements for a master's degree. In any case, we're not talking about a BSCS from Stanford or MIT.
Hello, I think Garys' advice is very solid. I would definite attempt Lawrie Millers plan. If you are a NJ resident TESC might be an option since I recently discovered Camden County College offers portfolios and on site testing. Have a great evening. Hille
